WDWBurghGooner wrote:I'm about 360 pages into Clash of Kings. It pretty crazy how similar the first book was with the first season. It seems like they cut some things out of the second season.

Spoiler:

In the series, Sansa seems really dumb and lovestruck with Joffrey up until Margery comes. I don't know if it was bad acting but I never got the sense that she despised Joffrey. In the book, it's much clearer that she starts hating him after Ned is beheaded. Maybe I'm just forgetting bc I haven't watched the second season in a while.

Also, Theon betraying the Starks seems to come out of nowhere. In the book, you get little hints that he may not be totally trustworthy.

Spoiler:

I'm right around the same place as you in the books (I'm on page 345) in Clash of Kings. Any book that there is a show or movie, the book always has a lot more to it, which is why I like reading them. You get what in the characters head, you get more explanation, more story line. It's just that sometimes things don't come across on TV or there just isnt' time.

Theon's story line is a lot more in depth in the book like you said, and you see how it builds.

I agree with TWC though, even in the show, Sansa was just loving him over self preservation. After he took her out to see her dad's head on the spike, I think that is where she knew she had to "pretend" to love him in order to survive.

WDWBurghGooner wrote:I'm about 360 pages into Clash of Kings. It pretty crazy how similar the first book was with the first season. It seems like they cut some things out of the second season.

Spoiler:

In the series, Sansa seems really dumb and lovestruck with Joffrey up until Margery comes. I don't know if it was bad acting but I never got the sense that she despised Joffrey. In the book, it's much clearer that she starts hating him after Ned is beheaded. Maybe I'm just forgetting bc I haven't watched the second season in a while.

Also, Theon betraying the Starks seems to come out of nowhere. In the book, you get little hints that he may not be totally trustworthy.

Spoiler:

I'm right around the same place as you in the books (I'm on page 345) in Clash of Kings. Any book that there is a show or movie, the book always has a lot more to it, which is why I like reading them. You get what in the characters head, you get more explanation, more story line. It's just that sometimes things don't come across on TV or there just isnt' time.

Theon's story line is a lot more in depth in the book like you said, and you see how it builds.

I agree with TWC though, even in the show, Sansa was just loving him over self preservation. After he took her out to see her dad's head on the spike, I think that is where she knew she had to "pretend" to love him in order to survive.

Spoiler:

What makes Sansa's character so compelling to me is how quickly she has to adapt to survive a very bad situation. Her sister Arya always had a rebellious nature, which makes it easier for her to hit the ground running when the *poop* hits the fan. Sansa had grown up content to be the perfect little princess, and only slowly comes to the realization that her flowery dreams of noble knights in shining armor are nothing by juvenile fairy tales and that in this cold hard world she lives in, she must develop a thick skin and quick head in playing her role to the utmost advantage. Ironically, it is characters she begins the books viewing as ghastly monsters (the Imp and the Hound) who come to her aide along the way, while the characters with a more pious facade she begins the books idolizing (Joffrey, Ser Loras, Cersei) disenchant, disappoint, and betray her. You see a lot of growth from her character as the books go on, she begins playing the courtly game not unlike you would imagine a young Cersei might if she had been placed in a similar scenario. You also get the subtlest of hints that Sansa, like Cersei, is not exactly 100% mentally stable and it has been hinted that even her 1st person narration may not all be a totally accurate reflection of reality within the storyline.

Yeah, one thing reading the books gives you that is hard to convey on screen often is what the characters are thinking. Great actors can sometimes do this without dialogue, but it's certainly a skill. I went back and re-watched Season 1 after reading the first book and it definitely impacts the way you view things... Often with discussing the show with my co-worker, I've found that things I never really gave a second thought to were unclear to him or didn't seem like they were in-character... but from reading the books, you get into the mind of most of these characters due to the POV style, so you know they do actually fit.

The more you read, the more it becomes amazing that they even attempted to take this story on given the breadth of the story they are working with. I just have a bad feeling that they are going to pass up Martin in the end and spoil the ending for us. No way is HBO going to do prequel seasons or wait around. He'd better move his ass.

I don't remember seeing that anywhere. The most recent article I saw on the subject was the producer talking about how 7 seasons would be their "sweet spot" and their were concerns about the children aging going forward.